Colouring paint

[Chocolate]

Does anyone have experience of, or advice about, colouring white French emulsion for interior rooms please?

Does it work/is it satisfactory?

Are the colours stable in this climate (SW France)?

There are several brands and types of colouring tubes on the market, so which is best?

Which brand and type of white emulsion do people suggest as the base?

Can satin and white kitchen/bathroom paint be coloured as well as matte?

 We have just paid the proverbial arm and leg for white paint for the sitting room from a shop which supplies to the trade; we thought it would be cheaper from them in bulk. So far we have needed 25 litres for two coats. What a price all told!

We now have other rooms which need to be painted but this time with coloured emulsion. However, it is not a case of pick up a Dulux card and choose here in France. I am aware that there are machines which mix the shade required, but the outcome on the wall could be a nasty surprise. Hence when I have seen tubes and jars of colourant, I have thought they might be the answer.

All advice and comments welcome please.

[1938]

To be honest havent used it in France but i have here in uk and not that good as you have to mix and mix well enough to do a whole room as you will never get the same shade...and if a bit gets scuffed or dirty later its impossible to match...best advice which is what i do is to bring paint from the uk as far better quality and half the price.

get a colour chart or colours that you like and get someone in uk to get matchpots of these, post them to you so u can see what they look like on the walls before you go to the expense of buying litres of the stuff.

Our local leyland paint ...a nation wide chain has half price sales every couple of months so I buy paint and stockpile it until we next take the car to france.

[Dick Smith]

We have done this with tubes of colour from Bricomarché and Michigan. It has worked fine with both British and French emulsion, Julie says it is better with British paint (we use Homebase emulsion) because the base paint is better. You end up having to keep the leftover paint for retouching, though, as it is just about impossible to repeat the colour. Our colours have been quite light (http://www.aulton.demon.co.uk/html/work_so_far....html) and that has worked very well. We are planning some more of the same.

[Chocolate]

The answers to our problems have to be French-based I'm afraid. The problem is that we have moved here lock stock and barrel as they say and we are so far down, (just Midi Pyrenees in 46) that we probably will only return by car about once in (?) years! We did ask a friend to bring down 10 litres of Dulux white when they visited us, but we felt uncomfortable about it. Felt as if all we wanted was their courier service and not their company! Those 10 litres are very precious and probably a one off.

Most people fly home from here but of course can't bring paint with them. Many of them visit for 3 - 6 months and bring supplies in their loaded cars. Again we can hardly ask for paint in the quantities we need. It isn't fair. We just can't ask.

The cost of driving back home, plus ferry fare and return journies just make it economically unviable to do it ourselves. Also there is the thought that we ought to get to grips with the indigenous paint so to speak as it will be easier to get and we are supporting the local economy. However, altruistic thoughts don't get the walls painted. Hence when I saw the colourants it seemed the answer, but of course raised more questions.

I have come across a British-goods based shop on the Internet about 2 depts away  who say they sell Dulux paint but I have no idea of price, (probably a lot to cover all the importing costs to them).

We can get to a Bricomarche from here. Thank you. Now we have to solve the base paint problem as Homebase is out of the question for us.

We really do have to find a French answer I think. All ideas and experience welcome.

[Dick Smith]

Shouldn't be a problem - we used an expensive monocouche for one room with colour added - all French sourced. You may need an extra coat. In this case mono=2 or possibly 3.

[Anton Redman]

The single coat emulsions which worked as one coat for us were Wickes (from UK) and Astral in France. Cheap paints did not work for us. In both cases they were amongst more expensive emulsions in the shop but they did the job.

We have tinted Valentine/Dulux base coats. We mix with an electric drill and one of vained paint mixers on a electric drill ( not the cheap one euro brico propellers) . We add half a sachet, check meter square off wall add another half a sachet until we reach the shade Isabel wants. We did not have any problems with repeatability and the 2 litres we have left over a touch up paint was OK two years latter  

[andyh4]

I would back up Anton's comments.  We used German tints (special offer 1€99 for 1/2 l) in graduated bottles - but one of the French brands are by the same manufacturer.  Just add a fixed amount to a 10l tin of good French Emmulsion mix really well with the elctric drill (note how much gives the right tint - write it on the bottle of colourant)  and away you go.  Again reproducibility has not been an issue.  Cheap paints did not work well though (patchy coverage - and also patchy when applied without colour).  I think these are only suitable for white over white on ceilings.

[Teamedup]

Do it all the time. Have had great success with both oil and water based paints. The trick ofcourse is mixing enough to do the job.

I have mixed nuances too. Say one of the creams bases, with a touch of red and maybe a touch of lemon. It depends what you want. Go steady though, a bit at a time.

The last one I bought was a castorama colour.

[Deimos]

I’ve used it a lot from Leroy Merlin. Different brands (including their own cheapo brand) and have had no problems. I got some samples (from UK) of “Barley White”, painted some wood and asked them to make that colour and it was too close to white for them. However, from their colour cards they got a close formula (as it did not have to match existing) and it was great.

I’ve even purchased one mix from one branch, them a month later taken the reference number into a different branch for more and it was a perfect match. I’ve done it with both matt emulsions and oil based wood paints. The “make up your colour” business I did was where you take in the colour you want on a sample thing and they scan the colour to match it. They then label the pot with the colour reference so you can get it again next time (exact match).

They seem to stir it pretty well too. I have never had any problems with colour variation in the tins (and I just give small pots a brief stir, big pots nothing). Only issue is that for large pots, the stiring process does seem to introduce quite a few small bubbles.

Ian